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Household Transport in 1999 and 2000: Some Scottish Household Survey results
7. Walking and cycling - adults (16+)(Tables 9 to 11; Charts F and G)
7.1 The interviewer asks the randomly-chosen adult on how many of the previous seven days did he/she make a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot (a) to go somewhere such as work, shopping or to see friends (i.e. used walking as a means of transport); and (b) just for the pleasure of walking, or to keep fit or walk a dog. A similar question is asked about cycling.
7.2 Walking
7.2.1 The left-hand side of Table 9 shows that 53% of adults said that, in the previous seven days, they had made a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot to go somewhere. There was very little difference between the figures for the two years, or for the sexes. The percentage who had walked to go somewhere tended to fall with age, from 70% of people aged 16-19 to just over half of those aged 40-59 and under a third of those aged 80 or over. The percentage was highest for adults in further or higher education (76%), and for adults living in large urban areas (58%). It was lowest for those who were permanently sick or disabled (33%), and for those living in "remote" rural areas (36%). There was some variation with the social class of the adult (the percentages for the different classes were between 53% and 63% - the apparent possible inconsistency with the overall figure of 53% is due to the social class being available for only about half the people - see section A.7), but very little variation with income (the percentages for the different income bands were all between 51% and 55%, except for those in households with an annual net household income of over 40,000 (59%)). However, groups for which similar percentages had walked as a means of transport could have different frequencies of so doing. For example, 23% of people from "unskilled" households had walked to go somewhere on 6-7 of the previous seven days, compared with only 15% of adults from "professional" households. Similarly, 17% of people from households with an annual net income of up to 10,000 had walked as a means of transport on 6-7 days compared with only 10-12% of those from households with a net income of over 30,000 per year.
7.2.2 The right-hand side of Table 9, and the upper part of Chart F, provide information about walking for pleasure or to keep fit (including walking a dog). 41% of adults said that they had made a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot for this purpose in the previous seven days: 44% of men and 38% of women. Chart F shows that the percentages for men and women did not differ much for the younger ages (the figures for men tended to be slightly higher), but from the age of 50 the percentage of men who said that they had walked for pleasure or to keep fit was much higher than the corresponding figure for women. The percentage for men was highest for those aged 50-54 and 65-69.
7.2.3 The percentage reporting that they had walked for pleasure or to keep fit was highest for self-employed people (52%) and lowest for permanently sick or disabled adults (24%). 54% of people with professional occupations had walked for pleasure or to keep fit, compared with 39% of those in partly-skilled or unskilled occupations. There were also differences between areas: 54% of adults in SHS-classified "remote" rural areas had walked for pleasure or to keep fit in the past seven days, compared with 36% of adults in large urban areas. Among adults who hold full driving licences, there was not much variation with the frequency of driving (45% - 51%).
7.3 Cycling
7.3.1 Table 10 shows the equivalent results for cycling. Only 3% of adults said that they had cycled as a means of transport in the previous seven days: 4% of men and 2% of women. The percentage was highest for 16-19 year olds (6%), then fell as age increased, to 0% of those aged 80 or over. There was some variation by current situation, with 6% of people in higher/further education saying they had cycled as a means of transport in the previous seven days compared with 1% of people who were permanently sick or disabled.
7.3.2 In 1999/2000, 4% of adults said that they had cycled for pleasure or to keep fit in the previous seven days: 5% of men and 2% of women. The lower part of Chart F shows that the percentage for men was higher than that for women for practically all age-groups. There was variation by social class. 7% of adults in professional occupations cycled for pleasure or to keep fit compared with 4% of adults in skilled non-manual and unskilled occupations. However, such differences must be interpreted cautiously when the sub-groups concerned had only a few hundred sample cases. There were also differences by annual net household income with only 2 - 3% of adults in a household with less than 15,000 annual net household income cycled for pleasure or to keep fit, versus 8% for adults in households with an annual net household income of over 40,000. There was also some variation by type of area: 3% in urban areas compared with 5% to 6% in SHS-classified small towns and rural areas.
7.4 Quarterly variation in walking and cycling
7.4.1 Because interviewing takes place throughout the year, one can look at how some of the SHS's results vary within the year. The upper parts of Table 11 and Chart G show the seasonal variation in walking, in terms of the percentages of adults who said that they had made a trip of more than a quarter of a mile by foot on one or more of the previous seven days. Overall, the percentage who had walked as a means of transport did not vary much during 1999/2000: the lowest value was 51.4% for the third quarter (July to September), the highest was the second quarter's 54.0% - a range of less than three percentage points. There was greater variation in the percentage who had walked for pleasure or to keep fit: the lowest figure was the first quarter's 37.7%, the highest was the second quarter's 44.7% - a range of seven percentage points. The lower parts of the table and the chart show the equivalent figures for cycling: the percentage who said that they had cycled as a means of transport did not change much during the year (between 2.6% and 3.9% - a range of only 1.3 percentage points), but there was greater variation in the percentage who cycled for pleasure or to keep fit (from the first quarter's 2.3% to the third quarter's 5.3% - a range of 3 percentage points).
7.4.2 The more detailed parts of Table 11 show how the percentages varied during the year for different sub-groups of the population - figures which must be used with caution, in some cases, because of the small underlying sample numbers: apparent changes between the quarters for a sub-group could well be due to, or exaggerated by, the effects of sampling variability.
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